We have been struggling with using glow sticks and the waste they create. We would like to use Battery Operated Candles instead. They create a more realistic flicker in the bag and create far less waste.
We've found a site online called Global Sources that works with a variety of Chinese manufacturers. You put out a message stating what you are looking for and the manufacturers get back to you with a quote. We went through this process and found one manufacturer who can sell them to us for a very reasonable price (for a very large number at one time). We figure we could divide them out over a few different Relays.
The Pro's:
Cost is only slightly higher than glow sticks (including the cost of shipping).
This particular kind last up to 36 hours
Replacement batteries are very cheap.
No throwing away piles of useless glow sticks that just go to the dump.
Savings over time.
More attractive/realistic than Glow Sticks
The Con's:
Shipping is very expensive, so we'd need to purchase replacement batteries at the same time as the candles.
Where do we store these things?
Replacing the batteries will be time consuming (but I'm sure someone would be willing to take it on)
To save the cost of storage and batteries, we could just assume that people will take them as a souvenier and not worry about replacement batteries or storage and just purchase from year to year.
Has anyone else done this? If so, do you store them from year to year or just buy all new?
I am wondering if anyone has contacted the ACS buyer and aksed why they are so much money? Why can't ACS buy at the big quanities out of China for all the events, or do they do that already and add on addministration fee's. The other thing is has anyone contacted our national sponcers? I know that Walgreen's carried these candles and maybe if someone called corporate, they would agree to have local stores donate to local relays. It is worth asking.
April 6, 2008 - 2:15am login or register to post comments
sahummel
Posts: 3
Joined: 2008-04-04
We kept encountering rain
We kept encountering rain during our Relay and started using plastic luminaria's with battery operated tea lights. Just before the luminaria ceremony, we turned on the tea lights, put them in dark cloth bags so those in the audience could not see them lit, and then placed the tea lights into the luminaria. It worked out pretty well. Let me know if you have any other questions.
April 4, 2008 - 2:44pm login or register to post comments
purplegirl
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-10-21
We bought them last year
We bought battery-operated candles for our ceremony last year from a site we found on-line. There were several sites that we considered and we spoke with our ACS Staff Partner about their experiences with the vendors and/or the candles. He said we could order from whoever we'd like to on-line...and we could use our event money (that had already been posted) to pay for them. To do that, we just had to tell him the name of the site, product, cost, and how many we wanted and then he had their office place the order and make the payment for what we wanted. I think we ended up going with a "wholesale" vendor...sorry, I don't remember the name or the site.... Best of luck!
-Anne
March 29, 2008 - 12:00pm login or register to post comments
melissa conover
Posts: 33
Joined: 2007-03-12
Candle Purchase Question
The price the other poster found on the ebay site is about the same as the price from the seller we are considering (http://www.sixstarsales.org/cart/). We found them in various quantities, even up to lots of 576! At that quantity, they are only $0.57 each. If you add the shipping, they are $0.67 each. Unfortunately, we are being told by our staff partner that we may not be able to purchase from our lower-priced, on-line vendor. We may have to purchase from the national vendor through ACS and that price is over $1.00 each. Was this ever brought up at anyone else's Relay? We will not be sharing the candles with other Relays, so we feel this should be our committee's decision.
--
Melissa Conover, Event Chair, Relay for Life of Pittsgrove, NJ
March 28, 2008 - 8:30pm login or register to post comments
relaydivajuli
Posts: 152
Joined: 2006-11-06
Candle purchase
We were almost at the point of purchasing and had pretty much gotten ACS approval but never got that far. The dollar has plummetted so much that the cost from China had gone up. What we also didn't realize was that the cost of shipping 2000 would literally DOUBLE from 1000...that was a real blow! That and the dollar being off...the shipping went from $350 to $800! So the cost of 2000 lights was now $400, but the cost of the shipping was twice that! EEK!
If only we could get enough Relays wanting to use them together to add up to 30,000! Then shipping would be MUCH more reasonable (about $450)! But we would need 15 Relays at 2000 a piece willing to give it a go! Or more in they needed less.
It surprises me that ACS is going with such an expensive provider so as to charge 1.00 a piece when they could purchase them directly for .20 when buying in bulk (again, this may have gone up, due the dollar doing so poorly right now). I have no problem believing that they could come up with a need for 30,000 lights in just California. And then shipping would not be quite so astronomical. I think because they see it as untested...so it's nice to know that other Relays have already used them successfully.
Sahummel & Purplegirl...how did you store them once you were through for the year? that is one of the concerns we've heard.
April 4, 2008 - 3:49pm login or register to post comments
doodle7995
Posts: 39
Joined: 2007-05-15
Battery operated tealights
We have not done this in Tacoma. As of now we are still allowed to use the candles and sand. However, I decided for our auction we wanted LUminaria as centerpieces for our tables. Since it is being held in a bar, I was a little worried about paper bags and flames on tables with alcohol so I decided to go with battery operated. I found some on eBay with batteries already in them and extra batteries sent with the order. With shipping they came out to be about 0.60 cents each. I ordered 144 http://stores.ebay.com/LT-Body-Jewelry-and-Novelty
Just wanted to share what I found with anyone who might need some. I got them today and they are perfect.
--
Sarah Conlon
Tacoma Relay for Life Beach Babes-Team Captain
January 22, 2008 - 5:24pm login or register to post comments
relaydivajuli
Posts: 152
Joined: 2006-11-06
starting new topic on this topic
Okay, so I'm going to post an Ad to explore the idea of finding enough Relays to get add up to 30,000 lights...who knows!
April 5, 2008 - 11:07am login or register to post comments
relaydivajuli
Posts: 152
Joined: 2006-11-06
bummer
Well, we decided it was just too hard to get this together in time, so I never posted. But we are going to try to purchase just the 2000 we need. At this point, though, we are awaiting the approval of our local ACS office. Wish us luck!
Joined: 2006-11-06